Took a Risk

Quite a big one for me with my conditioning to please others. Risking another’s wrath. And experiencing the fall out pretty intensely.

I didn’t want to do the next job. It was complex. Had a bad vibe from the clients who kept changing their minds. She designed it and I didn’t like the design. It’s far away and inconvenient to get to. So I decided to put it off.

I chose instead to start a project more local and easier for my men and for me to supervise. I let them know we would start in 8 weeks not 2. They wrote back furious and disappointed.

I have a few reactions to this. My heart sunk on receiving their disapproval. They could have chosen otherwise but they chose annoyance and anger. I don’t have control of that. I do not enjoy when others are angry with me. I prefer when people are happy!

My reaction was hot hot hot. Childhood stuff. My (self given) job to try and make my mum happy and avoid her anger. I failed to make her happy, she had an unhappy marriage unrelated to me, it was a losing battle. But inside the child mind it was my responsibility to make her happy and my fault she wasn’t. Conclusion=Unlovable. So the reaction from these clients, a failure to succeed in making them happy and feeling unlovable as a result. It’s taken me all day to process this, it’s been exhausting.

However it’s time to push beyond trying to please others at my expense. Time for a behaviour experiment. Practise saying no.

I knew it was a risk, but I chose to put myself first. I congratulate myself for that even if it’s uncomfortable in one sense. The urge to please others is a habit that is so strong.

My mood hadn’t been helped by the fact that I’m under financial stress just now, in overdraft and have people wanting money, suppliers and hmrc. I’m paying them as I can bit by bit. I don’t have a feeling of winning just now in this sense even though I know that is temporary, and I watch as disheartened waves arise and fall.

So I focus on what is going well to balance that. I have an abundance of new clients wanting our services and I’m getting to be choosy about what I take on. That has a winning feeling about it. I’ve got some lovely gentle clients too which also feels great.

My bitcoin and other cryptocurrency investments are doing well. I’m making more from that than from this business in the last 2 months, and it is gradually emerging as a goal to replace the business with that. However it’s small potatoes just now and a very volatile market. And long term.

I sit here day after day in my lovely space, and it’s still hard to control the mind’s propensity to focus on what is wrong. When everything is actually so very very right. Especially like now when my emotions are ruffled up and disturbed. It takes me a while to recover.

I just have to walk my own talk and get my toolkit out. So I feel the feelings, the contractions of fear, breath from my belly slowly, let them arrive and then subside. This journey of authenticity takes one into lands unknown. It can be disquieting and requires reassurance. So glad I can be here for myself for that now.